Change in contact temperature of finger touching on cold surfaces

This study deals with human fingers touching cold surfaces of four materials (aluminium, steel, nylon and wood) at different surface temperatures (?20°C, ?15°C, ?10°C, ?4°C, 0°C and 2°C). Contact finger skin-surface interface temperature and subjective responses on thermal and pain sensations were determined during touching. Type of material and their surface temperature clearly affected the contact cooling of the finger. Individual variation in finger contact cooling was significant. Contact temperature limits for human fingers touching cold surfaces are suggested according to the experimental results. In addition, time to reach a critical temperature (7°C, 5°C or 0°C) when contacting a cold metallic surface is discussed.

Relevance to industry

The outcome of this experimental study supplies as a basis for the development of an ergonomics database to determine temperature limit values for cold touchable surfaces. The critical temperatures are relevant to all industries where cold surfaces cause a risk of finger contact cooling for the manual protection in the cold operations.